: As the U.K. Prepares to Host COP26, Its Own Budget Falls Short on Green Initiatives #WorldNEWS Next week the eyes of the world will be firmly set on the U. K. as it hosts the first U. N. climate

As the U.K. Prepares to Host COP26, Its Own Budget Falls Short on Green Initiatives #WorldNEWS
Next week the eyes of the world will be firmly set on the U. K. as it hosts the first U. N. climate summit in two years, as the world emerges from Covid-19. Ahead of the summit, on Oct. 27, Britain’s Finance Minister Rishi Sunak, delivered a long awaited national budget. This was the final opportunity for the U. K. government to silence its critics, and match the recently published net zero strategy with the spending commitments required to deliver a zero emissions future. In other words, it was an opportunity for the U. K. government to put its money where its mouth is.
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But no one—even the governments harshest critics—would have expected a national budget so bereft of detail on how the U. K. will use its financial might to tackle the climate crisis. For the 70 minutes that Sunak spoke, he failed to mention the word ‘climate’ once.
At a glance, the U. K. could be considered a global leader on climate change. It was the first country in the G7 to legislate a net-zero carbon emission target by 2050. It has even delivered a strategy to decarbonise its economy. Yet, for those who follow Prime Minister Boris Johnsons government closely, these glittering targets and flashy speeches start to look like the Emperor’s new clothes when examined more closely.
Unfulfilled promises
The governments rhetoric around tackling climate change has accelerated, but its actions tell a different story. Take the ‘Green Homes Grant’ that it announced in 2020. It would have delivered both emissions reductions and climate justice, with thousands of people in the U. K. still living in appalling energy poverty. The government scrapped it only months later, and this week outlined a feeble replacement. More than 24 million homes need to be retrofitted across the U. K. , which could create good green jobs for thousands, and warm homes for millions of families, but now the government has scrapped mentions of retrofits, promising only to pay for the installation of heat pumps in a paltry 30,000 homes per year, leaving the rest of the job to the whims of the market.
But the decision to slash air passenger duty on domestic flights really sums up this governments approach to climate change. At current rates of growth, aviation will take up half of the U. K. ’s carbon use by 2050, despite serving only a slither of the U. K. population. In 2019, only 8% of the U. K. population took a single domestic flight. With statistics like this, you have to wonder who the Chancellor thinks he’s helping?
Then we look at their insistence on rolling out new fossil fuel projects exactly when we need to be winding down the production and consumption of polluting fuels and transitioning workers out of the industries of yesterday and into those that will build the future.